You probably had too much in your escrow account and your lender realized that after they paid your property taxes. So instead of keeping your money and then sometime down the road, years and years, raise your payment by $20, they just are refunding you whatever they currently done need... and then are charging you $20/mo more because your property taxes might've been reassessed higher after you purchased.

The federal regulations need the lenders to refund the money held in the escrow account within a month or two after the loan has been paid in full. If you have not received the escrow refund check from the lender within this time, you have the option of filing a complaint with the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

I found and old escrow refund check in the amount of $ 16,000.00 payable to me and it was dated way back april16,2006 . my question is can i still claime that money or can they replaced it with a current check dated 2010 ?

were almost on a closing date on june29, 2010. the mortgage company is asking us to bring a cashiers check payable to them. do i have to pay that escrow before closing coz the seller of the house, a brand new hoome told us that we dont have to pay for the closing cost and they will take care of it, only that we have to pay the 3.5% as downpayment which we did. now. the question is , do i have to pay for the escrow, im confused coz even my home insurance , the seller told us that they will take care of it. i have the exact monthly payment for the loan which will start on august 2010 included in the payments are home insurance , property taxes, hoa cost. please help. need to know the facts. tnx
principal and interest and so on. now, why do i have to pay for the escrow since i already make a downpayment and the seller will take care of the closing

tnx adonis..based on my message above..the figures for the loan is $160,000 and our monthly that we will pay is around $1,200 including property taxes,home insurance, hoa and the principal and interest. mentioned above that we already paid a downpayment of 3.5% w/c is around $7,500 now, the closing cost the seller gave is around $8,000 w/c the seller will pay as part of the closing cost we agreed and we will as they say shoulder another part of the closing cost. question is how much are we going to pay as part of the closing cost as what the title company is asking for us for the escrow.?. any idea or figures how much based on this figures. please help coz i want to prepare for that money they will ask for us to pay.

Patricia,
Both a refund for overpayment of a mortgage and a refund from an escrow account are NOT taxable. You do not deduct your total mortgage payment including escrow, you can only deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes. Any monies paid in to an escrow account are assumed already taxed by way of a payroll tax so any refunds do not need to be declared as income. The only taxable part of an escrow would be if any interest was paid on the account.

I'm only sad it's taken me so long to reply to this original question and sad that so many provide ill information. Underscore, the reason both can happen is because the government forces them to send ANY excess money back in the new year. They actually need the money still (which is why the payment increases the next year). There are also limitations on the amount lenders can take in addition, which again, is why they can't calculate the payments correctly, the first time around, too much government intervention. Does that help? Don't listen to the fools that give you bad information. In no shape or form, did they take too much money from you.

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